UOIT Math - Term 1 (2013)

Effective Minds On Activities for Grade 7 & 8 Students

Team 1 - Grade 7 - Measurement Relationships (p. 101 - Ontario Math Curriculum)

Authors: Christine, KV, Nabgha
Name of Activity: Unit Conversion
Instructions

Start off with relevant bell work on unit conversion
Question of the Day: Would it be better to make your own Gatorade using Gatorade powder or buy the bottle?
- Gatorade bottle costs $2 per 500mL
- Gatorade powder costs $5, can make 2L of Gatorade
Game: 5 stations, each one sells candy at different prices, "have" $5
- Get the most amount of candy based off the money you have

Team 2 - Grade 7 - Location and Movement (p. 104 - Ontario Math Curriculum)

Authors: Kelly, Katie, Jake
Name of Activity: Translations and Dilatations with Super Mario
Instructions:

Start the class by showing the class the following video. Ask them if they think there is any math involved in the video.
Talk to the class about how in this short video Mario is demonstrating translations and dilatations.
When Mario is running through the level, this is an example of translations.
As Mario gains a mushroom and increases in size, this is an example of an dilatation (stretch) of a scale.

Team 3 - Grade 7 - Patterns & Relations (p. 105 - Ontario Math Curriculum)

Authors: Taylor, Bryan, Joe Anne
Name of Activity: Patterns in nature
Instructions:
Step 1: Introduce Fibonacci sequence and show how to derive it. ( 0+1=, 1+1=2, 2+1=3, 3+2=5...)
Step 2: Class demonstration on the board - Example of demonstration (1 minute-1.45)
Step 3: Watch 3:00-5:00 on this video
Step 4: Class discussion on the Fibonacci sequence making an appearance in nature.
Step 5: Teach.

Team 4 - Grade 7 - Data Relationships (p. 107 - Ontario Math Curriculum)

Authors: Lukasz, Caroline, and Tiffany
Name of Activity: The Human Bar Graph
Instructions:
Step 1: Place an x and y axis on the floor with tape, with labels for each variable.
Step 2: Explain to students that they will be listening to 5 different songs and will need to choose their favourite.
Step 3: Show video with songs: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2EbPbOcDQ0
Step 4: Then get students to line up forming a line beginning at the x-axis in front of their chosen song forming a “human bar graph”.
Step 5: If possible, take a birds eye view photograph of the “human bar graph” and show it to the class once printed out.

Team 5 - Grade 7 - Probability (p. 108 - Ontario Math Curriculum)
Authors: Andrew, Ted, Peter
Name of Activity: Moneyball
Instructions
- Teaching statistics and probability we could use Moneyball as a theme.
- Using the poem "Casey at the Bat" as the hook to start the lesson
- Baseball allows us to create a fictional player, collect data from "at-bats"

We can use a youtube clip to show a scenario where data collection is useful

- Then we can calculate batting averages
- Can explore discrepancies between average and individual at bats

a player can bat .300 but still go 0 for 5 in any particular game

- Finish by connecting back to the "Casey at the Bat" to finish with our hero striking out

Team 6 - Grade 8 - Quantity Relationships (p. 111 - Ontario Math Curriculum)
Authors: Warren, Jason, Sean
Name of Activity: Using Circles to Compare Rational Numbers

Give each student in the class a cut-out of a circle (like a section from a pie graph)
Each piece is labelled with a different rational number between zero and one, written either as a fraction, a decimal, or a percent that corresponds to its size (e.g., a piece that was one quarter of a whole circle could be labelled as 1/4, 0.25, or 25%)
The whole class attempts to line up in order from smallest to largest. Students can do this either by comparing the numbers written on their piece or by physically comparing the size of the pieces

Team 7 - Grade 8 - Operational Sense (p. 111 - Ontario Math Curriculum)

Authors: Alisa, Lauren, Shima
Title: Gummy Bear Mix Up
Using gummy bears to find Percentages with Decimals
How this works:
(Using a sample classroom of 25 students)
What you need:

5 gummy colours/5 groups
23 gummies per group
Ever group has identical bags that contains:
- 6 yellow gummy bears
- 5 red gummy bears
- 4 orange gummy bears
- 5 green gummy bears
- 3 black gummy bears

Each group will be assigned one colour in the bag. As a group, they will have to find the percentage (rounded at two decimal places) of their colour of gummy bear in the bag. This should take about two minutes at most. As a class, each group will then present what their percentage is. The teacher will then add all the percentages and this should roughly add up to 100%. This will be the introduction on how percentages and decimals are related.

Team 8 - Grade 8 - Geometric Relationships (p. 114 - Ontario Math Curriculum)
Authors: Diana, Adele, Inga
Name of Activity: Cell Phone Signals and Rogers Towers
Instructions
[Specific expectation addressed: construct a circle, given its centre and radius, or a centre and a point on the circle, or three points on the circle.]

Pull up a map of the Rogers Towers around the school where you are teaching. Ask the students if they think there is a spot where they would not get cell signal between two towers (i.e. you are asking them to indirectly think about if the circles intersect?)
Ask the class “Does anybody have an idea of why a certain spot might not get a signal?” and “Does anybody have any idea why a certain spot might get a signal from two or more towers?” Lead the students into thinking of each tower as the centre of a circle, and the cell phone signal is only distributed in a circle within a given radius of each tower.

Team 9 - Grade 8 - Location and Movement (p. 115 - Ontario Math Curriculum)
Justin, Sylvia, Denise

Transformations, Rotations, and Translations
Hook:
Pose the questions (save the answers till after the video):
How is location and movement used to produce digital images (movies, video games)?
What is the correct terminology for a slide, flip, and turn?

Show the students the first 1.5 min of this video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVtz55mIuz4
The video shows how translation, rotations, and reflections are used to create a digital image of a dragon/dinosaur in a video.

Use this video to lead into an introduction of the unit/topic.
At the end of class you can show the rest of the video.

Team 10 - Grade 8 - Variables, Expressions, and Equations (p. 116 - Ontario Math Curriculum)

Keith, Stefan, Stephanie

We created the following fun word problem to get students interested:

Lois Lane is being held hostage by Lex Luther on the 100th floor of the Daily Planet building. Clark Kent, aka Superman, is working in the newsroom on the 10th floor when he gets wind of the situation. It takes him 1 minute to change into his Superman outfit and he knows he is capable of flying 2 stories a second.

a) How long will it take Superman to reach the 100th floor?

b) The elevator moves up a story every 2 seconds, but as it is located in the newsroom, Superman wouldn’t be able to change into his outfit without being seen. Which route to the top will be faster?

We would encourage a few willing students to come to the front of the class and act out the problem in a humourous way.

This activity is useful as it teaches students how to create expressions involving variables that relate to a written application. But making the subject matter something that is interesting to adolescents draws in students who would otherwise tune out the exercise.